The demographic modernisation of Spain in the twentieth century

Andreu Domingo and Joaquin Recaño provide a contextual understanding to developments throughout the twentieth century by their analysis of Spain's demographic transformation. This is a story of vast change, with the population more than doubling, from a system of high fertility and mortality to one low in both measures, from rural depopulation to urban expansion. This is in spite of two major periods of loss of life: the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the civil war. As the century proceeded high birth rates provided much of the population growth and when this began to decline, international immigration compensated. Mortality rates also declined and life expectancy rose in a marked fashion. The age at marriage has fluctuated, impacted by periods of economic boom and crisis, as well as the ruptures of the civil war. The end of Francoism brought with it the end of traditional values, and new opportunities for women, leading to declines in absolute figures of both marriage and fertility